Can you believe I actually had to check with Google to see
if the Super Bowl was today? That’s how out of touch I am with professional
sports. I kind of suspected it from the crowd at the grocery store. There was
way too much orange and blue for a regular Bronco weekend.
I asked the lady at the checkout who the Broncos were playing and she looked at me as if I was from outer space.
Do you remember when banks gave you interest? I mean real
interest? When I was a boy, the standard savings interest rate at banks was 6%.
Every time I made a deposit, I couldn’t wait to see how much interest I’d
earned since last time. And it was real money! If you had $500 in your savings,
you got $30 interest in a year. And then that $530 earned another $31.80 the
next year totaling $561.80 after just 2 years. And if the interest was
compounded quarterly (a very common practice) you yielded even more! When I got
my first calculator, I used to love to calculate how quickly my initial deposit
would double, triple, quadruple, etc.
The logic in this was that since the banks were using your
money to make money, we should share in the profit. But somewhere along the
line the banks got greedy, kept raising the interest on loans, and lowering it
on savings until we completely forgot about it.
I cut the cable cord years ago mainly because I got tired of
the commercials that go along with network television. Nowadays I stream
Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes, and YouTube. This way I can pick and choose the
movies, TV series, and videos I like without being bombarded with propaganda.
Funny though… All the propaganda that I am trying to avoid
is now coming at me through Facebook. Every day I’m bombarded with
misinformation and lies, all from this seemingly family-friendly social
platform.
On the same page where I’m seeing my friend’s cute little
children, or their new pet puppy, I could see a poster saying the US should be
a Republican theocracy, or hear an ignorant politician denying global warming.
I may be taking a break from Facebook real soon.
Later,
Steve
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